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Biggles Goes Alone/plot
Chapter 1: Grounded Air Commodore Raymond notices that Biggles is looking very worn out and more or less forces him to take a holiday, packing him off to one of his own favourite vacation spot: the Southview Hotel at remote Cornish seaside village of Polstow. Chapter 2: The Quiet Life Biggles spends almost a fortnight of the quiet life at Polstow, getting to know the inhabitants and generally sitting by the sea counting the waves. This is a scene-setting chapter which introduces most of the characters of the story. There is Major Payne and his wife, the owners of the Southview hotel. Also Graveson, a retired petroleum engineer, his wife and young son Paul. The family are "long term residents" of the hotel. Another long term resident is ex-mariner Captain Gower. Around the village, Biggles gets to know Vera Harrington, a pretty young woman whom Paul Graveson is fond of. She has a neighbour, Dr Augustus Venner, a retired medical officer who once worked in British Guiana. By the beach, Biggles also meets Mick Trelawny, a young, single fisherman who earned a living by catching and selling lobsters and crabs to customers in the village. Chapter 3: Death Comes to Polstow Biggles is surprised to see police come and take Paul Graveson away, Captain Gower tells Biggles that Vera Harrington has been found dead. Paul was the last person to be seen with her the night before when he visited her at her house. Major Payne, the hotel owner, adds a little from Paul's statement of events. Apparently he had bought Vera a box of chocolates and some flowers and had taken them to see Vera after dinner. Vera had gone up. The next morning, Miss Lewis, Vera's housekeeper found her dead. There had been no signs of scuffle or row, or any indication of a break-in. All the doors and windows were fastened. Chapter 4: Mostly Questions Chief Superintendent Smalley from Truro arrives at the hotel to question the residents. Payne has told him that Biggles is from Scotland Yard. Smalley is at first a little defensive and wary of any "interference" but he then warms up and shares his findings on the case. He is almost convinced it is a case of murder and Paul Graveson is his chief suspect. He shows Biggles a bottle of cyanide which belonged to Paul (he used it for a killing jar for butterflies). Medical examination will soon show if Vera died from cyanide poisoning, introduced, for example, through the chocolates Paul gave her. To Biggles this doesn't make sense--Vera had eaten the chocolates with Paul and yet was able to go about the house locking up after Paul had left. Smalley invites Biggles to share his idea. At this point Biggles notes two oddities. One, Vera had left the lid of the chocolate box off. Second, Vera had told Paul she was going to put his roses in water before going to bed. But she did not complete this task. Some roses were in a vase while the rest were on the table. Then she had gone upstairs for some unknown reason and had died upstairs. The lights in the house were still on. Chapter 5: Trelawny Mrs Chandler, Dr Venner's daily woman, comes to the hotel with a message from the doctor for Smalley. Venner suffers from rheumatism which keeps him up at night. The night before, he had seen Mick Trelawny near Vera's house at three in the morning. Smalley sends for Trelawny. He admits he was at Vera's house and explains that was because he had seen the lights on early in the morning, which was unusual. Thinking something was wrong, perhaps a burglar, he had gone up to the house but found everything quiet so he left rather than wake the occupants. He admits he is fond of Vera and appears to be very upset to learn of her death. Smalley is sceptical but Biggles finds him truthful. Chapter 6: Enter the Ghost Captain Gower, an avid reader of thrillers, shares all manner of theories with Biggles, throwing suspicion on one person after another. In the midst of this, Mrs Payne says she wouldn't be surprised Vera died from shock at seeing the ghost. Apparently her house is said to be haunted. Vera's mother (before she died) had talked about hearing footsteps in the middle of the night. Payne explains that the house once belonged to a notorious smuggler Nathaniel Binns who had fought it out with Excise Officers and been killed there. Chapter 7: Confession by Moonlight Late at night, Biggles hears a sound in the hotel yard. It's Paul trying to push his car through the gate. He tells Biggles he is planning to run away--it is only a matter of time before he is arrested for the murder of Vera. Biggles tells him running away would only make his position worse. He offers to help, but only if Paul tells the truth. Paul retraces the events of the day. He had gone to Truro and had offered to buy some roses for Vera. He left the hotel at half-past nine after dinner and got to Vera's at ten. They talked till ten-thirty and then he returned to the hotel, arriving at twenty to eleven. Biggles asks him to account for a few discrepancies. The police know he left his gloves at Vera's--why take driving gloves while walking? Secondly, why did it take him half an hour to walk to her house and only ten minutes to walk back? Paul now admits that he had forgotten to buy the roses from Truro. Going up to Vera's, he had stopped by Dr Venner's garden and cut some of his roses for her. Chapter 8: No Ninth Life for a Cat Smalley comes to the hotel to tell Biggles the autopsy results: there is no trace of cyanide or any other common poison. Yet there are signs consistent with death by poisoning. The doctors and Smalley are thoroughly baffled. Paul Graveson is in the clear and the police are back to square one. Taking his customary stroll, Biggles goes down to the beach and encounters Mick Trelawny who is morose that Vera is dead. After chatting for a while, Biggles asks him to show the way up the cliff--Mick had said he used that route to Vera's that night of her death. Mick shows him a direct route and then thinks better of it and shows Biggles another, easier one. Biggles is a little puzzled. Why should Mick suddenly change his mind? Is there something about the direct route he doesn't want Biggles to see? Back at the hotel at lunchtime, Biggles has to listen to Gower's speculations again. He is all excited. He was at the post office opposite Vera's house and saw Vera's cat. It staggered down the path stiff-legged, fur on end and then died. Obviously poisoned just like Vera. Secondly, Gower had heard more about the ghost, this time from Tom Hardy, the village pub owner. Apparently he had seen shadows moving about the house and sometimes a light flash. Hardy's grandfather had told him there was a secrt entrance to Vera's cottage. Nathaniel Binns had used it to escape the house when Excise men came for him. Chapter 9: Strange Interlude Still puzzled by Trelawny's behaviour, Biggles walks to the beach and climbs up the cliff by the direct route and finds the answer. There is a hook in the cliff face next to a fissure in the rock. It leads into a cave with a larg chamber at the end which shows signs of habitation. There are cigarette butts including one with lipstick. Biggles sits down and is still thinking things over when Trelawny comes in. He tells Biggles they are directly underneath Vera's cottage. There was once a trapdoor leading into Vera's kitchen. The alleged shadows was him. He used to go into the house (when it was unoccupied). However the trapdoor no longer existed--Vera had renovated the cottage and laid new floorboards which closed off the entrance. As for the lipstick, yes, Vera had been in the cave. He had taken her here to show her the truth about the alleged ghost in her cottage. Chapter 10: Light in the Darkness Biggles climbs up the cliff and walks back to the hotel by the back of Vera's cottage. He sees a dump of rubbish in her garden. There are five stalks of roses there. One is missing. He finds it lying slightly apart with a dead mouse next to it. So the cat had attacked the mouse and tangled itself with this sixth stalk. Back at the hotel, there is astonishing news. Smalley had gone to Vera's cottage to fetch Mrs Lewis and found her dead! Like Vera, there was no sign of injury or explanation o cause of death. Biggles packs a sponge bag and goes to the back of Vera's cottage again. Someone had disturbed the rubbish dump. The roses are gone! But the sixth one is still lying next to the dead mouse so Biggles, wearing gloves, packs it carefully into the sponge bag and returns to the hotel. He then calls Ginger. Dr Venner had apparently written a book about his time in British Guiana. He wants Ginger to find a copy of the book and send it by the earliest train. Chapter 11: The Book Biggles spends most of the next day reading Venner's book. Smalley turns up to say, as expected, that no trace of poison could be found in Miss Lewis either. But Biggles tells him not to rule out poison yet. He has an idea but it's only a surmise and he wants to develop it a bit more. If the Superintendent would return the next day at five, Biggles would tell him if this idea would be plausible or not. Smalley agrees. Chapter 12: The Accusing Finger Biggles calls on Dr Venner. He has no trouble getting the doctor to talk about his experiences in British Guiana, especially his experiments with native American poisons, which Venner had written about in his book at length. Venner admits he did experiments with wourali, a deadly poison brewed from snake venom. More direct now, Biggles tells Venner he must have brought some home to England and asks him why he dressed the stalks and thorns of his roses with wourali. Venner bitterly tells him this was because thieves had stolen the roses he had grown for the village flower show and had exhibited and worn prizes with them. When he had complained, the villagers had turned against him. He decided to teach the thieves a lesson. Biggles tells him he should have expected the consequences. He might not have expected Vera to fall victim, but if he had confessed earlier to Smalley, this might have saved Miss Lewis. No, he couldn't face the publicity of owning up, Venner replies. Knowing Biggles will report to the police, Venner takes a blowpipe off the wall and swings it suddenly at Biggles. Biggles ducks just in time. He moves quickly to seize the weapon and break it in too before leaving. Chapter 13: Biggles Explains Biggles tells Smalley what had happened and the police rush to arrest the doctor. They come back just a few minutes later to say that Venner had taken his own life with one of his poison darts. Probably better this way, Smalley asserts. Biggles repeats his earlier request that he be kept out of the entire case--he must return to his original mission to have a good rest. If Raymond learns that he has been tangling with a murder case, he might not like it at all! Category:Plot summaries